Deepika Padukone opens up about her struggle with depression and anxiety

January 15, 2015

Deepika Padukone

Mumbai, Jan 15: Believe it or not, but at the peak of her career in 2014, actress Deepika Padukone struggled with depression and anxiety.

Deepika Padukone has made this revelation to Hindustan Times, saying that psychological help combined with right medication helped her tide over the bouts of depression.

Here are some excerpts from Deepika’s candid talk about depression.

In early 2014, while I was being appreciated for my work, one morning, I woke up feeling different. A day earlier, I had fainted due to exhaustion; it was all downhill from there. I felt a strange emptiness in my stomach.

I thought it was stress, so I tried to distract myself by focusing on work, and surrounding myself with people, which helped for a while. But the nagging feeling didn’t go away. My breath was shallow, I suffered from lack of concentration and I broke down often.

Over a period of time, it got worse. When my parents visited, I would put up a brave front because they were worried about me living alone and working long hours.

Then, once, while talking to my mother (Ujjala Padukone), I broke down. She realised the problem, and got in touch with a psychologist friend, Anna Chandy, to get to the root of the cause.

Every morning, it was a struggle to wake up, and shoot for Happy New Year’s (HNY; 2014) climax. Finally, I had a word with Anna aunty. She flew to Mumbai from Bengaluru, and I talked my heart out to her. She concluded that I was suffering from anxiety and depression.

When she suggested I take medication, I was resistant. I thought talking was enough. Later, I met another psychologist, Dr Shyam Bhatt, in Bengaluru for a second opinion.

There were days when I would feel okay, but at times, within a day, there was a roller-coaster of feelings. Finally, I accepted my condition. The counselling helped, but only to an extent. Then, I took medication, and today I am much better.

Deepika revealed more about her struggle with depression. You can read it all here on HT.

The Happy New Year actress also revealed that she is working on an initiative to create awareness about anxiety and depression with the aim of helping people who suffer from it.

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Agencies
January 11,2020

New Delhi, Jan 11: The Delhi High Court on Saturday restrained from releasing Deepika Padukone-starrer 'Chhapaak' movie without due credits to the lawyer who represented the acid attack survivor, Lakshmi Agarwal, in her legal battle.

The restraint will be effective from January 15 in multiplexes and live streaming and for others from January 17.

The court directed filmmaker Meghna Gulzar to give due credit to lawyer Aparna Bhat who fought the criminal case for the acid survivor on whose life the movie is based.

It passed the order on a petition filed by Fox Studio challenging a trial court order which had directed the filmmakers to give credit to Bhat.

Delhi's Patiala House Court had earlier this week passed an order granting an ex-parte interim mandatory injunction directed that the filmmaker has to carry a line "Aparna Bhat continues to fight cases of sexual and physical violence against women" during the screening of the film.

Fox Studios then requested the Delhi High Court to set aside the trial court order.

The petitioner submitted that if the order passed in a suit filed just one day before the release of the film, is not vacated, varied or modified, then the petitioner will suffer grave injustice and irreparable harm and injury.

The movie, which hit the cinemas yesterday, is based on Laxmi's life. In 2005, at the age of 15, she was allegedly attacked by a spurned lover.

Laxmi had to undergo several surgeries. Later, she started helping other acid attack survivors and promoted campaigns to stop such gruesome attacks.

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News Network
January 18,2020

Mumbai, Jan 18: Actor Shabana Azmi was injured in an accident on Saturday afternoon on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in Maharashtra's Raigad district, an official said.

The incident took place around 3.30 pm near Khalapur, over 60 km from Mumbai, when the car in which she was traveling rammed into a truck, said Raigad Superintendent of Police Anil Paraskar.

She was rushed to MGM hospital in Navi Mumbai and was undergoing treatment, he said.

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News Network
April 2,2020

Mumbai, Apr 2: Ramayan, the over three-decade-old TV series based on Hindu mythology, garnered 170 million viewers in four shows over the last weekend in its new avatar, the BARC said on Thursday.

This catapulted the Ramanand Sagar production as the highest watched serial in the Hindi general entertainment space ever, the Broadcast Audience Research Council said.

The show was relaunched last Saturday amid the gloomy times of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a lot of thrust laid by the government machinery to popularise the series.

BARC's chief executive Sunil Lulla said the numbers notched up by the series was a bit surprising and called the move as a brilliant one by the Prasar Bharti.

He said eventually, we will also see advertisers flock the series which will be running for a few more days.

The inaugural show of the series on Saturday morning had 34 million viewers glued to their TV sets watching and enjoyed a rating of 3.4 per cent, while a telecast the same evening had 45 million viewers and a rating of 5.2 per cent.

The show bettered its performance on Sunday, with 40 million and 51 million people watching it in the morning and evening telecasts, respectively.

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